


The Only Thing Left Worth Stealing

by Ponderosa



Category: Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Black Male Character, Cameos, Canon Character of Color, Crossover, F/M, Female Character of Color, Fix-It, M/M, Time Loop, latina character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:58:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the way to meet a man at a cockfight, Roque ends up face to face with Agent Sands, who really isn't keen on the interruption of his retirement thanks to Max, the Losers, and a little device that was supposed to end up in Area 51.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Thing Left Worth Stealing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saekhwa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saekhwa/gifts).



_Somewhere hot and uncomfortable_

Wade squints at the jagged line of low mountains where the sun is going down. The fading light turns everything dramatic and orange, with a pattern of clouds painted in unreal colours. It's pretty, sort of, but also boring. He glances over at Max, who must be loving the lighting. Heck, he'd probably orchestrated the raid to coincide with sunset in the first place.

Standing amidst the still-flaming bits of rubber and metal that was all that remained of the tail-end of the convoy, the tilt of Max's head clearly indicates that he's been waiting for someone else to chime in. Being the only other living person present, Wade obliges. "What is it?" he asks, gesturing to the object shining golden in the palm of Max's black glove.

Max sighs like he'd been hoping for a more in-depth question, but Wade prefers to start with step one and go from there. He's still alive, so it's been a good policy.

"The answer to everything," Max tells him. He holds it up enough for the fading sunlight to illuminate the bits that resemble stained glass. The thing had stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the bits of broken pottery and fossilized crap that had been in the transport crates. Whatever it is, it looks plain funky in Wade's opinion, like a cheap prop you'd see in Star Trek than something that'd apparently been about to simultaneously make scientists everywhere pop a boner.

"This little beauty, Wade, doesn't deserve to end up locked away in Nevada with all the other cool toys," Max continues. He drops the device into his breast pocket and pats it. "The key to temporal distortion and the warping of the very fabric of the universe, if you can believe the rumours. Pretty much I like to think of it as the backup plan to the backup plan."

Wade hates Max's tendency to not answer questions when he'd wanted them asked in the first place. He looks back at the long stretch of the horizon as Max picks his way through a maze of body parts that was all that was left of their assault force and the convoy's armed escort. This was an unusually tough raid, but the pay keeps getting better, and he has to admit that Max keeps things interesting.

"Neat," he says, following Max back to the helicopter.

*

_Around the same time in Bolivia, also hot and uncomfortable_

Away from the main boulevards stacked with the nice hotels that cater to tourists and businessmen, the streets lose the cars and turn into a maze that's just bristling with clutter. Bright colours hang in front of the storefronts, and Roque ducks under low-hanging displays of cheap plastic junk. There are factories all over the place around here and still imported crap from the other side of the globe finds its way into the marketplace.

He takes a shortcut through a shop stacked floor to ceiling with used electronics. In another life, before he'd joined the service, he'd saved up money for a pop-top VCR just like that one. It seems like several lifetimes ago and even yesterday feels more distant than a single square on a calendar should. In the front and out the back and the shopkeep doesn't even spare him a glance. People never pay as much attention to the team as he expects, even in civilised company, a blessing considering the dumb stuff that regularly falls out of Jensen's mouth. Here they don't pass unnoticed, but Clay's making the mistake of believing that a lack of trouble with the locals means they're laying low.

Fuck laying low. Roque could use a little rough and tumble, maybe a solid round with some punks that have never left the same five blocks. He's getting sick of waiting. He's getting even more sick of the food around here. He craves a burger, and not the same fast food crap you can find just about anywhere, but a real backyard burger. There are a lot of things he craves, and it's different this time when the prospect of home—however abstract—is out of reach. The shithole of a room he's heading back to seems a lot like a prison cell.

He scowls and stretches his spine, feeling the reassuring press of the knife hidden in the back of his belt. They're going down a bad road and it's leading somewhere worse than a flea-infested hotel. He knows they've been on a one way street to majorly fucked since the minute Clay burned a perfectly good lead to chase after the frayed thread of a rumour.

Kids or not, it isn't like Clay to hold on to this sort of thing for so long. They've got an impressive track record but shit happens, whether it's an op going bad here in the middle of South America, or in the armpit of some other country they're not supposed to be messing around in. Usually after a day or two of entertaining ideas of going off the reservation to finish a job gone wrong, Clay eases up and then it's a few weeks of downtime before the next shitstorm is tossed their way.

But it's been a week going on two and Clay's still got his teeth in deep like a dog, biting harder when Roque even suggests it's time to move on. Nothing's going to bring those kids back, and the sympathy he had is fading swiftly.

He's back inside the hotel before he knows it. Up the stairs three at a time, he stops at the door to his room when a prickle along his skin warns him someone's waiting for him. He's reaching for a solid close-quarters knife when Clay invites him in.

"This is my room, I don't need an invitation." Roque considers pulling the knife anyway. Clay's drinking cheap beer, and he's sprawled on the bed practically begging for a few shallow cuts to pretty up the bare skin showing in the open vee of his shirt. For a moment, Roque can taste sweat and blood in the back of his throat, can feel the prickle of hair on his tongue from a long, wet lick up Clay's sternum. They haven't done anything like that in a long time, months going on years of being too busy running missions and Clay being keen to avoid permanent marks.

"You didn't lock the door." 

"What's the point. None of us have anything left worth stealing." Roque plucks a lime off the bedside table and sucks the juice from the wedge. A burger, he thinks, with steak cut fries and a whole lot of ketchup. "If you're not going to get us out of this country, let's at least get out of this goddamn hotel."

Clay nestles his beer between his thighs and sits up enough to strip off his shirt. "I don't feel like getting out of bed," he says, throwing the shirt at Roque.

Roque catches it, the fabric warm and slightly damp from sweat. A tingling rush of blood fattens up his dick. "You really want to pay to get this cleaned?" he asks. 

This time in the back of his throat he tastes semen, and he swallows thickly as his mouth floods wet. He thinks of the soft spots that will make Clay moan, the others that will make him beg, and the few that'll break him into whimpers and have him _aching_ for the rest of the week. The shirt falls and Roque crawls over Clay's legs. He licks the smooth neck of the bottle as Clay's fingers settle over the back of his head. Later, when it's heat filling Roque's mouth, Clay will press harder, hold him in place and make him take it all.

"Oh hell yes," Clay says in a purr, his eyes heavy as he goes for his zip.

They fuck and it's good, but one look at the ideas swimming back up from the haze in Clay's eyes and Roque knows this wasn't any sort of apology.

*

Some days just seem to go on forever. After three hours of heavy lifting and helping fix some junkheaps that should've been off the road twenty years ago, Roque pockets his wages. Even if he's getting old for the gig, he's a fucking soldier for a reason. He was done with the bullshit of being a greasemonkey at sixteen. He could deal with it better if he was working towards a real goal. Odd jobs and the doll factory are never going to build the cash they need to go home, and they haven't gotten into the good graces of anyone running a decent gambling parlour yet. They're quickly hitting the point of having to consider whether or not crime does pay.

When a group of boys cluster around him outside the auto shop, Roque bristles and snarls a warning at them in passable spanish. A dozen steps and they don't give up, crowding in closer to pluck at his pants and the hem of his shirt. _Please, mister. Come, come see. Please, it's not far._ He checks his watch—yes, still on his wrist—and considers if he's got time to kill before wasting an afternoon bashing himself against the brick wall that Clay's become.

The kids lead him northwest. He's an odd mark, but if they're not a pick-pocket crew working for themselves, they're taking him to their handler. Roque's blood rushes thick in his veins, adrenaline speeding his heart, but it's a church they point him towards and not a dark building or a dead-end alley. Neutral ground then, which he finds a bit disappointing as he slips inside.

Everything is warmly lit and golden. Sitting a few rows from the altar is a man in a straw fedora and a navy linen suitcoat. His arms stretch out across the back of the pew, his hands hidden in driving gloves resting casually on the reddish wood. He turns his head slightly in acknowledgment as Roque draws close. Driving gloves aside, everything from the dark sunglasses to the cheap suitcoat with a loud ugly shirt beneath points to _tourist_ , a carefully crafted look if he's got the local urchins doing his busywork. A healthy tan says the man's been away from a desk job for a while, and Roque's hackles go up. "Looking for me?" Roque asks, searching for a reaction to tell him anything and doesn't get even the twitch of a finger. The guy's a blank slate. Professional then, not a local, and either intelligence or someone who works for a cartel. Roque bets on the former as he sits a few feet over in the row behind.

"I'm not looking for anyone these days, buddy," the guy answers. He dips his head so his glasses slide down his nose an inch, then twists just enough to give Roque a peek at the pits of scar tissue. Even if the guy had eyes, Roque doesn't let his discomfort show, but the smirk that creeps onto the guy's face says he knows the injury doesn't sit well with Roque. He raises his sightless face to God and the glasses slip back into place.

"Agent Sands, Central Intelligence, retired," he says, crossing his legs at the knee. "Forcibly retired in case you're wondering, which is a bit like you and your asswad crew, but to answer your unasked question, what I'm doing is sitting here and praying." Sands's mouth drops into something cold and ruthless. "I am praying my balls off that you and your buddies get the fuck off out of my country so I continue to have some peace and quiet. The last thing I need is that second rate fuckmook Max sniffing around here."

"Your country?" Roque's brief laugh reverberates throughout the church.

"I put a lot of time and effort into this place. The interior decorating could still use some work, and I'm not that happy about the— Oh, fuck it." Sands sighs and abruptly stands up, leaving his arms behind on the pew. Roque's brain hiccups and needs a second to process--fake arms, who the fuck does that sort of shit—but he gets a gun in hand quickly enough to match the pair Sands aims at him.

"Looks like a standoff," Roque says.

"Here's the deal, the real thing." Sands releases the clips in his guns, flips them around in surrender. He drops them and kicks them away, metal skittering on the painted stone floor. "I see the patterns behind the patterns and I always have, which is why I was a better agent than Max, but forget ancient history. Ever since I had an appointment with a doctor that went bad, let's just say I see patterns even more clearly. William Roque I'm going to tell you two things. I've told you them a dozen times before. I'm living my own hellish version of Groundhog Day, only it might be easier if it was actually just a single _day_. No matter what, it seems like you Losers just can't give up, and it's royally screwing with my retirement."

Roque doesn't follow and his patience is down to its last. He cocks his gun, aims a little lower so it'll be a gut wound. "Tell me what the fuck you want with us, or I shoot you now and you die slow."

"You have," Sands says, and Roque gets hit with the worst sense of deja vu he's ever felt in his life. "And I've shot you, and if I want I can bet on a dozen winning ponies tomorrow and fund my own crew, but I tried that and since I can't rewind this nightmare I'm stuck trying to talk therapy your walnut brain."

Roque blinks rapidly, trying to get rid of the ghostly images that try and overlay reality. For a split-second he feels a sticky rush of blood spreading through his shirt, feels the kickback of the gun in his hand, feels everything around them blossom red with fire. Sands cocks his head to the side as if this is the first time he's truly been surprised by anything Roque's done.

"Two things, Spook. Spit it out because I'm about to walk out of here."

"One, the rest of your team—or should I say _Clay's_ team—can go fuck itself because it's become fairly clear that I need _you_ to say no when your old buddy Wade phones in an offer from his boss. You're the lynchpin, and doesn't that make you feel special, sweetheart? Two, if you shoot me, I guarantee you won't make it out the door before you stop breathing. Your friends will probably still win the day, because they somehow always do, but I'm betting it turns out a whole lot nastier."

"You're straight up motherfucking crazy."

"Yes I am." Sands picks up his prosthetics off the pew and tucks them both under one arm. He whistles shrilly, and the kids who'd led Roque here pour in down both aisles. "But only because that melodramatic over the top asshole is rigging the game, and let me tell you, that's _my_ specialty. You make sure to drop Max at the port, or he's going to limp away and trigger his little Area 51 doohickey for another shot at pulling off his plan, and let me tell you one last thing: I loathe Bill Murray."

Roque's arm is just about quivering with how very much he wants to squeeze the trigger, but from the corner of his eye he can see at least two of the places where the explosives are wired. The kids watch him like so many sharp-eyed birds.

"Crazy," he mutters, backing out.

*

When the girl comes into things, Roque isn't surprised, it's just their luck. His anger burns like a fuse all the way to Miami, and when the op goes sour he simply can't take it anymore. Things had been looking good, had felt _right_ with him and Clay in that ass ugly car and the dominos falling where they should up until the last. Wade working for someone like Max isn't a surprise, its that his acid trip of a day in that Bolivian church is coming back to haunt him. He hadn't told Clay anything about Sands, not when it would've been throwing a steak to a starving dog. 

He regrets it since he could use Clay's insight on the encounter, but what's the point when he's fixated on charging towards a little red cape that's going to end up getting them all killed. During the quick jump over to Houston, Roque shoves Bolivia out of his mind, occupying himself instead with the problem of where to go after all of this is over. There aren't many options, and as they settle in at an empty construction site, that arrogant ex-spook's words keep threading back into his thoughts.

His mood cools as the evening does, and he digs through the desk in the trailer he's claimed. A family smiles at him from photos set in plasticy frames, and he flips them all face down when he can't stand the sight of them anymore. Clay's the closest thing he has to family, and after years of somehow making it work that relationship is going to hell faster than the one with his flesh and blood.

The phone on the desk rings, and he's glad to be alone with how high he'd jumped. When it doesn't stop ringing, he picks it up.

On the other end, before he even says hello, Agent Sands says, "You're about to get that call. Don't fuck up, dickweed." The line goes dead, and Roque's skin crawls.

He hangs up, trying to make sense of the _how_ and searching his memory for everything that crazy fuck had said back in Bolivia. When the phone on the desk rings again, his stomach shrinks in on itself. He answers and listens and Wade's offer is solid enough that the temptation of it hums in his bones. _Don't fuck up..._ Only, fucking up is what he did to end up in the service, and to end up under Clay's command, and it's led him here with absolutely no roads open before him.

Roque demands to speak to Max and the voice over the line is tinny and slithery and the plastic in his hand makes a distressing creak he's gripping it so hard. He feels oddly hollow when he puts the receiver back on the cradle, and he's down half the bottle from the supervisor's drawer stash when Aisha comes knocking.

If she'd rapped her knuckles just a bit harder, he might have guessed it to be Cougar, but none of the other guys walked so lightly. "What the fuck do you want?" he asks, opening the door.

"You don't trust me and that's fine," she says. She braces a forearm against the door, and Roque has to admit that of all the batshit women Clay gets mixed up in, at least this one can hold her own. "You want to kill me twice over because I'm going to sleep with Clay, that's fine too."

"You've got a lot of nerve showing your face here."

"Look, Roque, I get it. I know how he looks at you." She lifts her chin when the point of his knife hovers at her throat. Metal scrapes over her skin when she swallows.

"Oh, yeah?"

Carefully, Aisha raises her hand and Roque expects her to try and push aside his arm not lay her palm on his chest. Her fingers twist in his shirt and she reaches for the bottle dangling at his side. Her brow arches as her hand slides over his. "He looks at you the same way you look at him."

He should kill her. He wants to kill her. If she wasn't right, he probably would, but he's not quite ready to see the bridge between him and Clay go from flames to ashes. That'd happen soon enough. "People change."

"Not often." Aisha's eyes flicker between his, and she stretches up, betting her life on him lowering the blade before it breaks skin. He's a little too slow, and after the first kiss, he licks up the bead of blood welling up at the hollow of her collarbones. She looks like she hasn't got a scrap of muscle on her, but she's strong, iron will and iron bones, and Roque can see for a moment why Clay's so charmed by her. He doesn't doubt that he could kill her if they went head to head, but he can see it in her eyes that she wouldn't _break_ , no matter how grim the fight.

She puts a hand to his cheek, sweeps a thumb over his lips, searches his eyes with equal seriousness. Slowly, she presses against him, lines their bodies up and it's nice, almost good except that it's a damn peace offering or a pity fuck, or something inbetween.

"Is it supposed to make me feel better if Clay's the one getting sloppy seconds?"

"Yes," she says, and bites at his mouth. Roque scrapes his teeth over his lip before pulling her all the way in and kissing back. She steps out of her clothes shamelessly and works her hands under his shirt. "You'll especially enjoy it because just like you he's stupid enough to be talked into not using a condom."

Afterwards, she takes his booze and a spare undershirt that'd been left in an open locker. 

Roque makes himself as comfortable as he can on the couch and looks forward to a sleepless night. He's not entirely sure what he's going to do if after Houston they were pointed towards a port city. Max could've been playing him since Bolivia, messing with his mind and shit, but if so, taking an offer from a headcase wasn't any better than sticking with Clay. 

Roque covers his face with his hands and wishes he hadn't fucked her. Wishes like hell that he didn't know the sounds the both of them were making on the other side of the yard. He wonders if Clay's going down on her or if his dick's already wet with her and the slick mess of Roque's come. A shiver runs all along his spine and he wonders if he's crazy for considering whether or not he's been here before. 

He could fix things and Aisha wouldn't stand in the way, not like he'd expected. She'd probably still ruin Clay, but there's still time to man up and refuse to walk away. A deep ache throbs behind his eye.

Tomorrow could be a very different day.


End file.
